The Shadows I Live With
by DAIrinchan
Summary: You have to move forward, even when you've lost people you care about. Even when you're sure you're to blame. Spoilers for chapter 357.


**Disclaimer:** _Hunter X Hunter_ is not mine. I'm sure i wouldn't have broken my own heart this badly.

* * *

At first Machi had raged against the Bungee Gum holding her in place. After everything, Hisoka was going to – after she _helped_ him –how could she have been so _stupid?_

His Nen stuck to her, dragging her down, trapping her in one place so that she couldn't chase after him and undo what she'd done. She'd heard him say often enough that it had the properties of both rubber and gum, but the memory only made her more furious as the Bungee Gum pulled at any movement she tried to make, snapping her arms back into place.

What was he doing, while she couldn't stop him?

Worse, what had he already done?

But you can only strain against rubber and gum for so long before you exhausted yourself. Brute force wasn't going to get Machi out. She closed her eyes in frustration, and would bang her head against a wall if she could reach one.

After a few deep breaths, Machi returned to the basics of Nen. Emission wasn't her strong suit, but she focused a layer of aura between herself and Hisoka's Bungee Gum.

It helped to calm her, as well. If she let her imagination wander, her control would slip, and it would take her longer to free herself. For the time being, she let the task of unsticking her skin and clothes take over her thoughts.

It took longer than she hoped, but eventually Machi was able to work her way free. It took only a fraction of that time for her rage to return in full.

"That bastard!" she snarled, slamming her fist against the wall. What did he think he was doing?

Maybe there was still time. Machi fished her phone out of her gi and hit Chrollo's name with more force than was strictly necessary. She didn't want to admit to how badly she'd messed up, but he had to know.

Her leader picked up quickly, as he always did. "Machi?"

"He got me!" she growled, neglecting to give context.

"What?"

"Hisoka," she clarified. "He's still alive." At Chrollo's silence, she hastened to correct herself. "Or alive again. We confirmed his death, he was definitely dead when you left, but he's back. He wants – he thinks he can kill us all."

Chrollo's silence continued. Machi was about to ask him if he was all right when he spoke. "Where are the others?"

Machi felt a sudden, white-cold dread fill her. "They left before me," she said. "He said he was going to kill us. He trapped me in his Nen and told me to warn you all."

"You're all right?" Chrollo asked. It was an unnecessary question; if she wasn't she wouldn't be talking to him now, but she appreciated that he asked.

"Fine," she said shortly. "Have you talked to Shal and Kortopi?"

"Ye-es," Chrollo said slowly. On his end of the line, he was feeling the same cold pit grow in his stomach. Almost on impulse, he summoned his Nen book and flipped through the pages with his free hand. Surely . . .

He reached Kortopi's page first, or he should have. The page holding Gallery Fake was blank. Another page on, and Shalnark's ability had disappeared as well. He swore.

On the other end, Machi was immediately alert. "What is it?"

Chrollo closed his eyes, as if he could block out the truth. "Shal and Kortopi's abilities have disappeared from Bandit's Secret."

While he depended on keeping the extent of his Nen a secret even from his friends, Machi knew enough to understand the significance. He heard an explosive "Damn it!" and a crashing sound. A moment later, Machi was back. "This is my fault," she said. "I should have stopped him – i shouldn't have stitched him back together–"

"No," Chrollo interrupted. There was a growing surety in his heart that this was his own fault, but this wasn't the time. "We need to find them."

"Right." Machi didn't even hesitate. Chrollo heard her footsteps as she started to run. She was probably still in Heaven's Arena. It would take her some time to make her way out of the massive skyscraper. He ended the call and tried to think.

When he'd spoken to Shalnark earlier, he'd been walking through a busy street, but Shal's side of the conversation hadn't had much background noise. He'd been somewhere quiet. Chrollo strained to remember, even as his feet began to carry him back towards the arena. Had there been anything he could use as a clue?

Yes, there was; if he replayed the call in his mind, Chrollo could remember hearing faint voices of children calling and laughing. Maybe some birdsong.

Shal had been in a park.

Maybe he was just imagining things in his need for a clue, but it was all he had. He called Machi back. "I think Shal might have been in a park when i talked to him earlier."

"Got it," she replied. It was getting late; long shadows stretched over the streets.

Who else was in the city? The Phantom Troupe rarely acted as a cohesive unit; most of the time they broke up into smaller groups and scattered to do their own thing. It had always seemed convenient enough to Chrollo, but maybe if more of them had been in the area, they would have been better able to deal with a reanimated Hisoka. Maybe he shouldn't have taken the chance Shal and Kortopi would be caught alone without their Nen.

The others nearby were . . . Phinks, Feitan, and Bonolenov. Chrollo gave them their instructions and then sent off text messages to the rest of the Troupe to be wary of Hisoka.

He didn't mention Shalnark or Kortopi. Part of him knew he was just delaying the inevitable. If they were alive, their pages wouldn't have been removed from his book. But it didn't quite feel real, yet, and he wasn't ready to make that announcement. Besides, it wasn't the sort of thing you could say over text.

As the streetlights began to turn on, Chrollo headed for the one park he remembered seeing, looking up how many parks were in the city on his phone. He avoided other pedestrians with the ease of long practice at multitasking. There was a lot of ground to cover, and he couldn't forget the possibility that he might pass their bodies, or at least a clue, while he was trying to do too many things at once. The thought kept returning to his mind, telling him he'd already missed enough.

* * *

It was fully dark when Chrollo met Machi at the entrance to the last park. They'd all been searching separately, in case one of them missed something, but so far they'd found no signs. He nodded wearily to her.

"I'll kill him," she said in greeting. Chrollo knew exactly how she felt. The past few hours had been draining.

It was his mistake, after all. He hadn't taken the possibility that Hisoka might come back into account. He should have taken precautions, and killed him more thoroughly.

By unspoken agreement, they split off to take the opposite ends of the park. They'd work towards each other.

It was Machi who found it first. Chrollo heard her inarticulate cry of rage and despair and began to run. He came to see her in a pool of light, stringing up the crows that had come flocking, and beyond her threads . . .

For a moment, all Chrollo could think was, _The next child playing in this park is going to get an awful surprise._

Even the chain bastard, after killing Uvo, hadn't been so cruel. Even an unmarked grave somewhere the Troupe would never find was better than this, this display. Like it was a _game_.

Shalnark's body had been carefully positioned on the middle swing of three in a swingset among other playground equipment, almost directly under a lamppost. His wrists had been tethered to the swing's chains in a grotesque parody of the game. His head hung, his eyes staring blankly at nothing. Blood covered his chest, almost enough to disguise the gaping wound that must have killed him. On the ground beneath him lay a mass of bloodied hair that Chrollo only belatedly realized was Kortopi's severed head.

"Shit," came Phinks's voice behind them. The others must have made it to this park.

"We need to take him down," said Bonolenov.

"Yes," Chrollo said, startled back into the moment. "And keep looking. Kortopi's body must be nearby."

Without a word, Feitan pushed forward to disentangle one of Shal's wrists from the swing, taking more care than Chrollo would have thought he was capable of. Machi took Shal's other side. Chrollo caught the eye of the other two men, and they separated to continue the search.

The thought, lurking in the back of Chrollo's mind for hours, solidified into fact. He couldn't avoid it any longer. He had done this.

He'd given Hisoka a reason to target Shal and Kortopi, and taken away their ability to defend themselves. Machi said Hisoka was planning to kill all of them; he must intend to keep Chrollo from borrowing anyone else's Nen.

He should never have used their abilities against Hisoka.

At the very least, he should have had the other Spiders protect Shal and Kortopi while they were defenseless. He was such a fool. Why had he let his guard down? In Yorknew, he'd made sure that none of them would be caught on their own. Had he really thought that, since the chain user hadn't shown any interest in them for over a year, that there was no danger for the Troupe? Had he really become so naïve? The life they lived meant that there would always be enemies. There would always be danger.

He hadn't been careful enough, and his friends were the ones to die for it.

* * *

Phinks was the one to find Kortopi's body, tossed behind a public restroom like so much refuse. It must not have suited the picture Hisoka wanted to paint.

His body looked so small as Phinks carried him back to the swing to lay him out beside Shalnark. He'd always been the smallest of the Troupe.

He wasn't much of a fighter, not really. His talents were in other areas. He didn't deserve this.

Machi knelt beside his body, in the pool of light cast by one of the park's few lights. The glimmer of Nen threads appeared at her fingers as she began to stitch Kortopi's head back onto his neck.

Chrollo had seen her attach limbs before. Her fingers would flash as she sewed muscles, tendons, and ligaments back into a whole. It took her no more than a few moments.

This was different. Because Kortopi was already dead, there was no need to race against time. Because he was her friend, she needed this last moment with him. She could do nothing more.

The men stood around the bodies and watched her work. Someone had closed Shal's eyes, Chrollo noticed as the gleaming threads in Kortopi's neck multiplied. He was glad.

Kortopi's eyes had been closed too, his hair swept back from his face to give Machi room to work. It occurred to Chrollo that he wasn't sure if he'd ever seen Kortopi's face before.

Machi turned Kortopi's body to reach the back of his neck. After a few more minutes, she eased him back to lie flat on the ground, brushed his hair and clothes a bit with her fingers, and finally looked up at them. "It's done," she said. Bonolenov pressed the back of his glove briefly to her shoulder.

"We bury them," Feitan said. "Then what?"

This was the part of being leader Chrollo hated most. "We get on the Black Whale as planned," he replied.

The others all looked at him. "Are we running away?" Phinks asked. He wasn't the sort to fight him, not like Nobunaga had after Uvo's death, but someone had to ask.

"No," Chrollo shook his head. "If i couldn't kill him when we fought, then we need a new plan to get rid of him. The Dark Continent expedition will buy us time to do that."

"Fine," Feitan said shortly, lifting Kortopi's newly whole body over his shoulder. Phinks picked up Shalnark and turned back to Chrollo. "Where to?" As if he had all the answers. As if they still had reason to trust him. He knew why Hisoka had done it, and sooner or later, the others would realize it was his fault as well.

If he could change the past, he would. He would have prepared better for this fight against Hisoka, so nobody but Hisoka himself would have to die. But it was too late.

He named a place that would make a good gravesite, where they could work without being disturbed, and they set out.

Machi lingered behind, in the circle of light with the bloodstains. She caught Chrollo's eye, and he waited for her.

"I don't like this," Machi said in a low voice. "We know who did it, so we should deal with him now."

Truth be told, Chrollo didn't like it either. He preferred to correct his mistakes as soon as possible. "We're not ready yet. This happened because we didn't prepare enough for him this time."

"We found an exorcist for you. He's running on Nen now, so if we just exorcised him–"

"But can we?" Chrollo pressed. "Nen that remains after death tends to get much stronger, Machi. You know that."

"Can Hisoka even hold a grudge as strong as the chain bastard's?" she muttered stubbornly, but she didn't fight him. "I just . . . I can't believe this is happening. If i hadn't–" She clenched her fists, and Chrollo realized what was really bothering her.

"It's not your fault," Chrollo told her.

"But i–"

"You didn't bring him back," he told her gently. "It was his own Nen. And you didn't give him a reason to go after the Troupe."

Machi's brow knitted. "You couldn't have predicted this," she said at last. "No one could have. You can't know ahead of time whose Nen will last after death, and Hisoka isn't exactly predictable."

"Then why do you blame yourself?"

"Because." She pressed her lips together, then continued. "It was my Nen that triggered his to come back. I . . ."

Chrollo was already shaking his head. "That doesn't make sense, Machi, and i think you know it. When Nen survives after death, it's caused by the user's feelings, not coming into contact with someone else's aura."

Chrollo had underestimated Hisoka's desire to fight him. If he thought that Chrollo's use of his friends' powers was cheating, their battle wouldn't have been the fight he wanted.

"We're not letting him go," he said, as much because he needed to hear himself say it as to reassure Machi. "We will hunt him down, and we _will_ kill him. This is only temporary."

"I want to do it," she said, and took a sharp breath. "I want to be the one to kill him."

"I'll keep that in mind," Chrollo said. He nodded after their departing friends. "Shall we?"

Machi gave a shaky nod and stepped out from under the light towards him. Chrollo let her to pass ahead of him. He needed the space that came with following last.

Chrollo watched his friends move through the darkness before him. There were six of them here with him, but only four were living. That was on him.

He'd take care of Shalnark and Kortopi. And then . . . then he'd come up with a new plan so no one else would have to die.

* * *

 **A/N:** For the record, i feel that any blame for Kortopi and Shal's deaths goes squarely to Hisoka, but Chrollo and Machi must both be blaming themselves, and objectively there's more reason for Chrollo to feel that way than Machi. I am disappointed that the super-cautious Chrollo we saw in Yorknew seems to have lapsed. And neither Shalnark nor Kortopi deserved this. I'm going to miss them both horribly.


End file.
